logo

Quotes About Darkness

Indeed how might it be if things revealed their colors only when (in our terms) no light fell on them - if, for example, the sky were black? Could we not then say, only by black light do they appear to us in their full colors?
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein
But they can't know how the dark space inside me is growing. I lie to them. I can't get out of the dark hole. 'Peace is here' it whispers.
~ Lurlene McDaniel
That dreaded silence. Most people of the Western mindset live in fear of it. They stay busy to escape its emptiness. Cut off from their own animal nature by processed food and air-conditioned offices, they occupy themselves with television and home-improvement projects to keep at bay the uncharted darkness within.
~ Lyam Thomas Christopher
Somehow, in our language and in our psyches, we have come to equate good with light and evil with darkness. The symbolism runs deep. We see it in our poetry, our religion, our songs, and our cultural mythology.
~ Lyanda Lynn Haupt
The unlit chandelier loomed over us, a dim glass jellyfish in the dark reaches of the ceiling. Candles sputtered on the table.
~ Lydia Millet
Above me soft footsteps, the sound through the ceiling of a teenager haunted by a door to the night. My cousin Maybonne lights up a Salem, blows ghosts to the darkness, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
~ Lynda Barry
He was, and she had to swallow very hard to keep from choking, the most terribly beautiful man she had ever seen. He had a long, wicked scar that traveled from his temple down his cheek to the side of his chin and below his jaw. Somehow, though, it just didn't detract from his handsomeness, dark though that was. His face was all planes and angles, harsh even in the deepening gloom. His hair was dark and his eyes were full of cynicism.
~ Lynn Kurland
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke once remarked that in your darkest moments you shouldn't blame your life. Instead, you should blame yourself for not being able to see the poetry.
~ M. Christian
Two men deep in conversation could be seen disappearing along the opposite pavement towards Mortlake, their shadows cast huge and filmily onto the brewery walls by the kind of late-night city light that, while failing to relieve the darkness in any way, seems to pour in from every direction at once. Otherwise Wharf Terrace presented itself with only minute differences from his usual point of view. He had expected more.
~ M. John Harrison
Go the window: the street is empty. You may hear running footsteps, or a sigh. In a minute or two the whistles have moved away in the direction of the Tinmarket or the Margarethestrasse. Next day some minor prince is discovered in the gutter with his throat cut, and all you are left with is the impression of secret wars, lethal patience, an intelligent manouevring in the dark.
~ M. John Harrison
The ancients had instincts and abilities that are lost to civilization today. Magic was real. It lived inside the shamans. Inside the priests. They passed it on from generation to generation. You have the dregs of that power in you. It it not the strength that it was, but you can access it. But to do so you must be willing to travel deep into your own darkness and be open to risk. To pull from the earth's energy.
~ M.J. Rose
I see my skeleton walking down the street now. I'm walking behind it. Our feet touch the ground at the same time. I am my own shadow. The road we're walking along looks familiar. The trees lining the pavement have been bleached by the sun. There are stone steps on my left. I climb them. This is the route I used to take after school. It's very dark. The skeleton has disappeared.
~ Ma Jian
Escobar veio abrindo a alma toda, desde a porta da rua até ao fundo do quintal. A alma da gente, como sabes, é uma casa assim disposta, não raro com janelas para todos os lados, muita luz e ar puro. Também as há fechadas e escuras, sem janelas ou com poucas e gradeadas, à semelhança de conventos e prisões. Outrossim, capelas e bazares, simples alpendres ou paços sumptuosos.
~ Machado de Assis
A book, too, can be a star, "explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly," a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
It was a dark and stormy night.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
Itt iss Eevill… What is going to happen? Wee wwill cconnttinnue tto ffightt!… And we're not alone, you know, children, came Mrs.Whatsit, the comforter. …some of the best fighters have come from your own planet… Who have our fighters been? Calvin asked. Oh, you must know them, dear, Mrs.Whatsit said. Mrs.Who's spectacles shone out at them triumphantly. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
There is in God, some say, a deep but dazzling darkness.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars, clear and pure.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
To love is to be vulnerable; and it is only in vulnerability and risk—not safety and security—that we overcome darkness.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
Darkness was and darkness was good. As with light. Light and Darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
If she could give love to IT perhaps it would shrivel up and die, for she was sure that IT could not withstand love.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
Love, she insisted, is not power, which she considered always coercive. To love is to be vulnerable; and it is only in vulnerability and risk—not safety and security—that we overcome darkness.
~ Madeleine L'Engle
There was no light. The darkness was deep and there was no dazzle.
~ Madeleine L'Engle